


Touch Me

by sysrae



Series: All I Want Is You [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Castiel Has Panic Attacks, Dorks in Love, Endverse Castiel - Freeform, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, M/M, Morning Sex, Mythology kink, Poetry Kink, Praise Kink, Sequel to Get Some, Therapy, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Castiel, handjobs, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 04:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4125237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sysrae/pseuds/sysrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You're a poem in applied mythology,' Cas says, and shifts his hips wider, hooking his left calf over the back of Dean's right knee, rubbing against him. 'A literal golden boy. Like Midas touched you, but left you living.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch Me

The thing about sex – or rather, one of the many things about sex – is that it's not a panacea. Even when it's mindblowing; even when it's with someone you love; even when it blacks you out and you sleep without nightmares and wake up nestled in safe, warm arms with a warmer mouth on your neck, it doesn't fix the part of you that's broken. Good sex soothes, but doesn't cure; and Castiel Novak, who's been using sex as a valium-vicodin substitute since he was seventeen, knows this better than anyone.

Yet even so, he hopes.

Dean lips sleepily at his shoulder, mumbling something that might be hello as he runs a hand along Cas's side. The simple touch is like fireworks going off: Cas arches his back, whimpering at the contact. It's been a week since they started doing this – a week since they first fought and fell into bed together, fucking sweet and desperate, swapping _I love yous_ in the afterglow and trading lazy blowjobs in the shower – and even now, it feels like a whiplash miracle. Cas doesn't want to question it, but nobody, whether housemate or partner, has ever stuck with him as long as Dean, and he's terrified down to his bones of losing him.

'Hey,' Dean murmurs, and rolls Cas gently onto his back, so that they're face to face. He's sleepily perfect, all gold hair and golden skin and dark gold freckles; even his eyes, which are green as moss, have golden flecks in their irises. _Gold, gold, gold._ He's warmth and light, a summer god, but though he smiles as he bumps their noses together, there's a furrow between his brows. 'Cas, sweetheart. Are you okay?'

A lump forms in Cas's throat. Of course he's been called pet names before, but never by anyone who meant anything; never in a way that wasn't strictly dirty talk. But Dean calls him _sweetheart,_ and it's like the word is fingertips on the harpstrings of his body; he _shivers_ with it, aching with implications, with a wanting too big for skin, for his heart –

'Touch me?' he asks, hating how pathetic he sounds. He's said it so often these past few days, the words don't sound like English any more. _Touch me. Touch me. Touch me. Touch._ He pictures the spelling, running a mental cantrip of absurd pronunciations – _tee-ouch, tooch, toe-uch, too-uck-ch'_ – and waits, as part of him always will, for the moment Dean says no.

But Dean doesn't refuse him. Not this time, and maybe – as another part of him hopes – not ever. Instead, he kisses Cas chastely, in a way that says he understands, and rolls on top of him under the blankets, foreheads pressed together as he slowly cards his hands through Cas's hair.

Cas made a list, once, of touch-related words from all different languages. His first therapist had him do it, back when he was newly emancipated and even shaking hands with someone was enough to have him spiral into a panic attack. At her suggestion, he read through the list aloud in one of their sessions, and was sobbing by the end of it, curled around a core of himself he felt certain held nothing but emptiness.

She'd stroked his hair, too – lightly, so lightly, the contact little stronger than a child's breath. Not like Dean does now, his fingernails dragging against Cas's scalp, occasionally tugging just enough to send fireworks through his body. There's a word for this in Brazilian Portuguese that doesn't exist in English: _cafuné,_ the act of tenderly stroking someone's hair. Cas melts into the contact, arms coming up to wrap Dean's back, hips rolling of their own accord in a way that both is and isn't sexual. Dean huffs a laugh, kissing the ridge of his cheek, and moves against him in turn, thumbs massaging his temples.

All at once, Cas is overwhelmed. Tears prick the corners of his eyes; he tries to swallow a sob, but his throat's too full, and god, he's so fucked up, and what if he upsets Dean somehow, and Dean stops touching him? How can they ever argue, how can Cas ever give him space? He starts to shake, but Dean doesn't budge an inch: just keeps on stroking his scalp, his hair, peppering light kisses across his face.

'I've got you, sweetheart. It's okay. I'm not going anywhere.'

'I'm sorry,' Cas whispers. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry –'

'Don't be,' Dean says, and shifts enough to kiss his neck. 'I love you. I love touching you. It doesn't have to be about sex. You can always ask for what you want.' He leans up a little, looks Cas in the eye. 'Even if we fight, I'll never deny you touch.'

It's a practised mantra, one Cas needs to hear. His therapist suggested it, when he called to tell her about Dean the previous Sunday, and after the two of them talked in turn – he'd been nervous, letting Ellen and Dean discuss his history, but the phone had been on speaker, so he heard everything they said, knew it wasn't anything bad – and thanks to Bela, that's another exciting new hangup he has to deal with: fear of being gossiped about – Dean sat down with Cas and shyly suggested the wording, what to say to talk him down from panic.

 _I need you to know, I mean it,_ Dean had said, cupping his face. _That I'll always mean it._

Coming from anyone else, Cas wouldn't have believed it. But maybe, just maybe, he can with Dean.

At that, his pulse starts to settle; he hadn't even realised it was racing. His panic attacks come in many forms, but thus far, Dean's proven to be spookily adept at discerning them – even, apparently, first thing in the morning.

Castiel lets out a held breath, long and slow, and smiles at Dean, who kisses his lips again and murmurs, 'There you are.'

'Here I am,' Cas echoes, and twines his arms around Dean's neck.

Dean makes a pleased sound, hands still buried in Cas's hair as he noses down to the juncture of throat and shoulder, breathing him in. Castiel smiles at the ceiling, curling a palm possessively against the base of Dean's neck. He's back in his body, just like that, and feels a need to show it.

'You're a poem in applied mythology,' Cas says, and shifts his hips wider, hooking his left calf over the back of Dean's right knee, rubbing against him. 'A literal golden boy. Like Midas touched you, but left you living.'

Dean's breathing hitches. He nuzzles into Cas, and oh, yes, he's definitely hard. Dean is, they quickly discovered, receptive to praise in a more than strictly platonic sense, and Castiel loves him so fiercely – is always a little eloquent in his joy, which Dean elicits like nothing and no one else – that it would seem a shame to disregard the confluence.

'You're Idun's apples,' Cas says, kissing Dean's shoulder, 'sweet-fleshed youth in golden skin, and mine to devour. Mine and mine and mine.' He bites down, gently, loving the way Dean shudders – then grips him, grins and flips him over, twining their fingers together as Cas pins him to the pillows, ruts against him in lazy strokes.

'Fuck,' Dean whispers, blushing prettily, pupils blown. 'Fuck, _Cas_ –'

'Rosy-fingered dawn is nothing to you,' Cas murmurs, brushing his lips against Dean's ear. 'Not even when it lit Achilles. More beautiful than Ganymede or Tammuz, one stolen to heaven and one –' he kisses his neck, '– to hell; but you, beloved. You, I'll keep right here – on Earth, and in my bed – and love you well.'

'You'd better,' Dean gasps, hips writhing for friction. Cas kisses him deeply, tasting morning on his tongue and not caring a whit. He pulls Dean's wrists together, pins them with a single hand and reaches down between them with the other, fingers closing around their cocks. They're both wet and eager, and he strokes them fast and slow, fast and slow, rutting as a counterstroke without breaking the kiss. Dean whimpers into his mouth, bucking up against him, and comes a half-second before Cas does, each of them collapsing against the other.

'I think you've given me a mythology kink,' Dean says, laughing as he presses a breathless kiss to Cas's collarbone. 'Or maybe a poetry kink. Or both.'

'Is that a complaint or an observation?'

'Yes,' says Dean, and Castiel laughs, kissing his jaw as he rolls off his lover, propping himself on an elbow. 'Fuck, I don't even know what half of that meant –'

'It means,' says Cas, running a thumb along Dean's bottom lip, 'that you're beautiful, and I love you. The rest is academic.'

Dean fixes Cas with a half-suspicious stare. 'Was that a pun, Castiel Novak?'

' _Nescio, sed fieri sentio_ –'

'No Latin!'

'– _et excrucior_ ,' Cas finishes, kissing him softly on the mouth.

When they break apart, Dean laughs. 'Dork,' he says, fondly, and swings his legs over the edge of the mattress. 'I'm going to grab us a washcloth. You want anything while I'm up?'

'Cold pizza?' Cas asks, hopefully.

'I think I can swing that,' Dean says, and drops a parting kiss on Cas's forehead, gloriously naked as he strides off to the bathroom.

Cas lies back on the pillows, suffused by a feeling akin to peace. He still needs therapy, and even with the mantra to reassure him, he suspects it'll be a good long while before the irrational bursts of fear that Dean will leave, that he'll end up starved for touch again, will abate, assuming they ever do. No matter how rare his attacks become, a part of him is always going to worry that he'll be left alone, unloved, untouched; that the ache in his soul will finally burn its way to the surface and take the rest of him with it. He knows he has to fight for Dean – and not just _for_ him, but eventually _with_ him, too, because no relationship is perfect. It's all so hard and so wonderful, and sometimes he's so fucking scared he can barely breathe with the weight of it; but he wants this, too, he _wants_ , and god, he's going to fight for it with everything he has.

Dean re-enters the room, a pizza box in one hand and a washcloth in the other. He tosses this latter item to Cas, who cleans himself up in the time it takes Dean to get back into bed, his back against the headboard. He rests the box on his raised knees, grinning.

'Well? Are we having breakfast or not?'

'We are,' Cas says, and sits up beside him, radiating happiness.

_Tee-ouch, tooch, toe-uch, too-uck-ch'._

_Touch_ , Cas thinks, and as Dean pulls him close, the word makes sense again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The Latin Castiel quotes is from Catullus 85, which I think is the perfect poem to sum up Cas as a character. The whole thing, in original and in translation, is as follows:
> 
> Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?  
> Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.
> 
> I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask?  
> I do not know, but I feel it happening, and I am tormented.


End file.
